Warhammer 40,000 – 2nd Edition Starter Set

Today, we will provide an overview of the contents of the 2nd Edition Starter Set of Warhammer 40,000 (1993–1998) for collectors and those about to enter the realm of retro-gaming. You can use this article as a checklist to see if your set is complete, or to identify any missing items.

This edition was accompanied by White Dwarf (UK) issues 166 to 225, Citadel Journals 1 to 28, various codices, and a supplement called Dark Millennium (which we will also cover).

The starter set covered Space Marines and Space Orks, each with a small battle force and a full set of rules (Rulebook, Wargear, Codex Imperialis and Codex Army Lists). The RRP back in 1993 was about 34,99 GBP / 59,99 USD when it was released in October 1993. I bought mine in September 1997 for the regular price of 149 DM and was very fond of the almost 5 kg boxed set.

After 25–30 years, many of the boxes may look like this, so it can be difficult to tell what's missing. For this reason, this checklist is intended to help you check whether you have everything, either when looking for a used set or when trying to replace items missing from your old set.

The Space Marines depicted as Blood Angels covered two tactical squads, each comprising 10 plastic miniatures (one Space Marine Sergeant, one Space Marine with a Flamer, one Space Marine with a Missile Launcher, and seven Tactical Space Marines per squad). The Ork army comprised 20 Orks, 40 Gretchin and a cardboard stand-up of the Ork Dreadnought/Killa Kan. The models were multi-part miniatures that were quite close to push-fit, with a single miniature per sprue consisting of multiple parts. Stuff of Legends hosts this picture from the Citadel Annual.

There were three softcover books: the Rulebook covering the core rules; the Wargear covering the equipment; and the Codex Imperialis covering an overview of the armies and profiles.

Four thinner booklets were also included: a painting guide for the Space Marines and Orks; a 'How to Play'; a scenario book, 'Battle for Armageddon'; and a 'Codex Army List' to help you build your army, including point values. There was also a reference and weapon sheet.

In terms of gaming materials, you get 14 dice (10 D6 and 4 special dice: 1 scatter, 1 artillery and 2 sustained fire), as well as lots of cardboard items (among them five sheets of a total of 20 card board battle ruins).

The cardboard sheets cover two reference sheets (one covering rules and one covering weapon summaries, shown above), 14 templates, and 56 tokens/counters (the sheet contained more tokens than are listed in the rulebook).

• 1" blast template
• 1,5" blast template
• 2" blast template
• 3" blast template
• Hand flamer template
• Flamer template
• Heavy Flamer template
• Multiple-Hit template (4 combined 1" blast templates)
• Vehicle Turning template
• Vortex Grenade (1,5" blast template)

• 12 wound counters (4x 1 wound, 4x 2 wound, 4x 3 wound)
• 1 turn counter
• 2 Imperial Aquila counters
• 2 Ork glyph counters
• 2 out of control counters
• 6 run counters
• 6 flamed counters
• 12 speed counters (4x slow speed, 4x combat speed, 4x fast speed)
• 9 recharge/broken double sided counters
• 6 hidden/detected double sided counters
• 12 jam/overwatch double sided counters

As Necromunda 1995 shared many of the tokens with the 2nd edition of 40k, you can find some resources over at Yaktribe (Blast Templates or Counters / Tokens).

Beyond that, there were two card decks of different sizes, mission cards and war gear.

3 Squad Reference cards (Imperial Space Marines, Gretchin and Space Ork Goffs)
1 Victory Record Chart and 3 Markers (Turn, Aquila and Ork Victory Point indicator)

8 Mission Cards (a set of four in blue and green)

• Engage and Destroy
• The Assassins
• Dawn Raid
• Take and Hold

12 Wargear Cards

• Haywire Grenade (2)
• Displacer Field
• Bionic Eye
• Scanner
• Combi-Weapon
• Vortex Grenade (2)
• Refractor Field
• Firepike
• Conversion Field
• Web of Skulls

6 Vehicle Cards

• Space Ork Battlewagon
• Space Ork Dreadnought
• Space Marine Land Raider
• Space Marine Predator
• Space Marine Rhino
• Space Marine Dreadnought

Depending on whether you want the original version or are just interested in the information stated on the cards and in the books, there is a huge amount of information available online. Army Builders cover the 2nd edition, including codices, for example NewRecruit (or the no longer updated BattleScribe). There are also many websites that gather information, including:

• 2e40k.com
• Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition on Facebook
• Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition on BoardGameGeek
• Miniscape
• Cowabunga Journal
• Project Anvil

If you're looking for pieces, please use the communities on various boards or social media. Many of the eBay listings are overpriced, and we don't want to contribute to the problem of making classic gaming more expensive to get into.